Hummingbirds

Hummingbirds are fascinating to watch and I've always thought of them as extremely beautiful creatures. I don't think I ever saw one until I was in my mid-twenties. My parents put a hummingbird feeder outside the kitchen window and it became a frequent feeding spot for many hummingbirds in my neighborhood. My mother passed away in August of 2005 and in the week after my mom passed away, there were an abundant amount of hummingbirds flying around the kitchen window. As I watched those hummingbirds, for some reason, I felt like my mother was there with me and that she had "sent" those hummingbirds just for me. Ever since then, every time I see a hummingbird, I think of my mother. I found out later, that other people were seeing hummingbirds as well, including my mom's close group of college girlfriends. In fact, her friends were gathered together shortly after her funeral and there was a hummingbird that wouldn't leave them alone and was even trying to get in their house where they were gathered together. Some of them later got hummingbird tattoos in honor of my mother. On my birthday, a couple weeks after my mom died, Jesse bought me a hummingbird feeder and we promptly filled it and hung it outside, but I didn't see any hummingbirds visit. I had begun to wonder if the whole hummingbird "thing" was just in my imagination, until I was standing in my classroom on the 1-year anniversary of my mom's death and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a hummingbird hanging outside my classroom window. It took my breath away! More recently, hummingbirds have made their way back into our lives. We still hang the feeder every summer, but we have never had any visitors; however, Logan has mentioned hummingbirds a couple of times and I know for sure the whole hummingbird "thing" is not just in my imagination. I have never told him how hummingbirds remind me of his grandma, he has never seen a hummingbird in real life and he has one book about a hummingbird, but the book calls the bird "Little Green" and never actually uses the word "hummingbird". So, you can imagine my surprise when I went into his room one morning to wake him up and he said, "The hummingbird...right there." I asked him, "Where?" and he didn't respond and so I dropped it. Currently, Logan is sick and was coughing like crazy early this morning so I went into his room about 3:00 AM to sit with him for a while. We were sitting in his room cuddling and he suddenly said, "Mommy, the hummingbird was scared...it flew away." I immediately started crying and asked him if he saw a hummingbird and once again he didn't respond. I just held him a little longer and cried while I held him and then put him back to bed. I left his room and got on my knees and thanked God for making the hummingbird "thing" real and for using this extremely beautiful creature to remind me how much we're loved by Him and by my mother. I can't wait until Logan is old enough to understand this whole thing and I can't wait to tell him about how he saw hummingbirds in his dreams.